Powell's Books has featured 12 Reasons Why I Love Her in their Review A Day series on their site. Read more through the excerpt:
"But 12 Reasons Why I Love Her takes a nuanced view of the highs and lows of romance, trading fairy tale fantasies for the peaks and valleys of a real relationship. The bittersweet, perfectly ambiguous climax allows an adult male to justify reading a "romance comic" without hiding from public view."
It's a fair review, though the Garden State comparison stings a bit, particularly as I use that movie as an object lesson of what not to do. The regular criticism of Evan is something I've thought about and tried to decide if I should take on board, but I always stick on one thing: the title has, to my mind, a clear statement as to who it's about and who the experiences are filtered through. In a way, complaining that Evan doesn't come out enough in a book about his impressions of Gwen is maybe a little like complaining we don't get enough Paul Varjak in Breakfast at Tiffany's. Paul isn't telling his own story, but the story of his interactions with Holly Golightly, and what we learn about him is gleaned from his choices of what to tell us.
Criticism about one's art or writing is like any kind of opinion in life that comes from outside you: you have to filter it in order to find what makes sense for you, otherwise you'll end up bending every which way and never knowing where you're going.
I'll actually be at Powell's on November 20 to read from my books, particularly Have You Seen the Horizon Lately?
Speaking of that book...
Al Columbia and Have You Seen the Horizon Lately?.
Current Soundtrack: TV in the background.
Current Mood: exanimate
2 comments:
Hey, Jamie!
My name's Brendan Collins, and I've been a fan of your work since "Cut My Hair." I don't know why I never thought to Google you unil just now, but I'm glad to see you keeping a blog of stuff to keep us fans abreast.
Haven't seen any of your articles in Shojo Beat lately... are you still working with them? And also, have you done any new work with TOKYOPOP? I followed the entirety of Ms. Maki Murakami's "Gravitation" series, and have been waiting patiently for more Murakami goodness... :)
Anyway, I love "Love the Way You Love" lately. I'll admit, I was a little hesitant about it at first because I thought Tristen's character was brilliant in the novel and was scared he wouldn't quite make it as a comic character - but you know, he does adapt well to the medium!
Anyway - thanks for listening, and thanks for blogging! :)
Hey, Brendan.
The Shojo Beat thing kind of dried up for me when Laurenn McCubbin left. No real explanation for it. It's too bad, because it was a good gig.
I've been doing a lot of work for Tokyopop over the years, a lot of short series, and the very long Ai Yori Aoshi. Currently, I'm doing the series Gatcha Gacha which is pretty twisted. I'm also doing a couple of titles for Udon.
Thanks for stopping by.
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